


Ruse de Guerre

by ellementalwitch



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bad BDSM Etiquette, Coercive Tactics, Dark Steve Rogers, Dark-ish, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Gentle Dark Steve Rogers, Kink Exploration, Not Age of Ultron through Endgame Compliant, Old-Fashioned Steve Rogers, POV Second Person, Pregnancy Kink, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Under-negotiated Kink, no y/n
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2020-10-29 08:10:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20793443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellementalwitch/pseuds/ellementalwitch
Summary: Steve Rogers is, by all appearances, the perfect boyfriend... So what does he have to do and how far will he have to go to convince his best girl to marry him without scaring her off?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It’s the Loving Dark Steve fic I’ve always wanted! As delicious as the truly dark, violent fics are, I’m really interested in exploring “the greatest strategic mind of a generation” trying to get his way in a pre-established soft, loving relationship. I guess you might call it slow burn darkness? Maybe “Old-Fashioned Steve introduces BDSM dynamics into his relationship as a way of getting what he wants” darkness?
> 
> **Warning:** As you may have noticed, this work does not use any specific archive warnings, but please proceed with the caution you would give any other Dark!Steve fic. Content may include dubious consent (or, later, dubious CNC), abusive or coercive tactics used in a relationship, poor or manipulative BDSM etiquette, unplanned pregnancy and the discussions that follow, and more. I will try to keep the tags updated, but I ask that readers proceed knowing this is a dark fic that explores difficult themes and is not meant for anyone under the age of 18.

_“Guess who.”_

The world goes black as warm, calloused palms come down around your eyes, the taunt sounding far too quiet and far too close to your ear for comfort. You gasp, heartbeat leaping in your chest, and your panicked mind cycles through a rapid list of horrible possibilities—Hydra? AIM? Dr. Doom?—before you recognize the clean scent of Ivory soap and Crest toothpaste.

“Steve!” A laugh bubbles up beneath your breast, high-pitched and breathy with your lingering nerves, and you bat the hands away from your face. “What on earth?”

Swiveling in your desk chair, you tilt your head up to look at your boyfriend. From this angle, his tall, broad body seems even taller and broader than normal. You always feel a bit like a heroine in a bodice ripper around him, his appearance so big and intimidating, yet his manners so gentle… And anyway, he's Steve Rogers, Captain America, and if you can’t privately entertain a few silly damsel-in-distress fantasies with him, then when can you?

It baffles you sometimes to think about how lucky you must be to have a man like him.

“I just wanted to see my best girl before she puts her nose to the grindstone today,” he teases, rubbing the calloused pad of his thumb over your nose. 

You wrinkle it at him, sticking out your tongue, and he laughs, deep and rich. Your heart melts at the way his smile goes a little goofy at the corners, his eyes crinkling with delight, truly amused.

“You could just say, ‘Good morning, sweetheart,’ like a normal person.” 

Steve pauses, considering you for a moment as his smile slides off his face. You entertain a brief moment of anxiety—_was that the right thing to say?_—but he winks at you as you watch his shoulders roll back and his hands go to his hips. In the blink of an eye, he’s not your boyfriend anymore; he’s Captain America, considering a new strategy, a life-threatening situation, or an unknown enemy combatant.

He makes you wait for a few long seconds while he rocks back on his heels and furrows his brow, humming low in his throat to let you know just how deeply he is thinking.

“But tell me, doll,” he says, in the slow, measured tone you only hear him use in press conferences and Avengers meetings. “Where’s the fun in that?” 

The sudden rush of warmth between your thighs has you crossing your legs, stuffing your hands beneath your knees, and you lean forward in your seat. _“Steve…”_

His lips quirk, but he makes you wait, bending ever-so-slightly until he’s truly looming over you before he opens his mouth and—

“Hey, E. Edward Grey, no foreplay in the lobby!” Tony Stark’s voice snaps you out of your Steve-induced trance, and you shrink in your seat, the aching heat between your legs immediately dying down to an uncomfortable dampness.

Steve, seeing your discomfort, straightens. “Tony—”

“Ah, ah, Cap. Lee Holloway, you’re with me. We have a meeting with Ross in five and I need a lackey to pretend to not take notes in the background.”

“I guess that’s goodbye,” you murmur. Your face is burning, and you can’t even meet Steve’s eyes; for all that you two do together in the privacy of your apartments, you’ve never gotten over your innate shyness when it comes to such matters. 

“Doll.”

Steve catches your chin in his hand, holding you steady without forcing you to look at him, and you sigh.

“Steve…”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“No, it’s fine.” You swallow hard and push down at the discomfort until you can look him in the eyes again. His blue eyes are burning now, and you settle your hands at his waist, trying to get the promise of his shield breaking Tony’s face to melt off his features before you go. “It’s fine, I swear. I just… You know.”

“I know,” he says, understanding what you’re trying to say without making you—God forbid—say the mortifying words aloud at work. He chuckles at the way you try to duck your head again and bends down to buss a quick kiss against your cheek before helping you to your feet. “You’re a good girl.”

“Steve.” You push at him, tossing a glance in the direction of the conference room where you know Tony’s waiting. You have to wonder if he knows that the way he’s always saying these things makes you feel, sweet, old-fashioned nothings making you hot, innocent little phrases feeling filthy coming from him. “Quit.”

But Captain America won’t relent to a little playful shoving by his girlfriend; instead, he simply tucks your StarkPad into your hands and smooths your skirt over your hips. 

“I’ll see you for dinner? My place?”

“Can we order in?

“You got it. Chinese?”

“Please?”

“Sure thing, babydoll. Go on, before Pepper has to get involved.”

* * *

Steve huffs as he watches you go.

It was cute at first—the appeal of a single young woman working to earn her way in the city. Your thriftiness was something Steve had been conditioned to appreciate in the lean years of the Depression when every extra cent a family could earn mattered, and he looks back fondly on those early days when you showed up every morning in your cute wool skirts and no-nonsense shoes, home-brewed travel mug of coffee in hand. You would sit at your desk behind several thick walls of bulletproof glass and scroll the internet for cheap recipe ideas and DIY projects while you waited for the rare telephone call or even rarer visitor to walk into the heavily-guarded and highly-classified Avengers office suite seventy floors up in the Tower. 

And as pointless as your job may initially seem to the outward observer, you do manage to do some good around the place. You order the blue Post-Its and gel-gripped pens Steve likes, you keep the kitchenette stocked with fresh coffee and cream, you smile and laugh with him whenever he gets bored of filling out mission reports and wants a distraction. You’re a bright, pretty girl who brings a bit of sunshine to the office.

You are, for all the good it does, a very good administrative assistant. 

He snorts. Yeah, and _that’s_ just the fancy, modern slang for secretary.

In his day, your job was just a pastime for future wives and mothers while they waited to find the right man with the right salary. 

So, sure, you’re a great secretary from nine to five, but Steve has been certain, absolutely certain, that you would be a perfect wife since the moment he met you. 

He just doesn’t know what your hang-ups are. 

He had a ring paid off and in his pocket six weeks after your first date. Hell, he had planned to propose on your two-month anniversary until he floated the idea of marriage and you laughed, saying you would only consider marrying someone after dating for a year or two.

A year! Or two!

Six months had already passed, and you had only just asked him if he wanted to "be serious” three months ago, whatever that meant.

Quite honestly, not a single bit of modern dating makes any sense to him. 

It wasn’t like you had any reason to object. He was handsome, healthy, and a goddamn _superhero_. Seventy years of backpay amassed a fortune even he can't believe in his bank account. What remained of his old awkwardness around women had even passed after a few dates with you. Once he found his footing with you and figured out what made you blush and what made you bristle, it was easy enough to tweak his responses accordingly. Hell, it wasn't even hard; your tastes aligned with his so perfectly that he wasn't even pretending with you anymore.

And you… You’re a pretty, intelligent woman. Perhaps you won’t to win the Miss America pageant or a Nobel Prize anytime soon, but you’re hardly lacking in those areas. You’re gorgeous in your own understated way, unlike the peacocking women at the galas and events Tony throws so often, and you’re smart enough to run a tight ship at work and at home without being overbearing about it. You’re young, too, but certainly not so young that starting a family is a ludicrous idea. 

Besides, you hold a middling job and, although it may pay better than the average secretarial position, it’s still just a secretarial position with no room for growth unless you have superpowers you forgot to tell Hill about in your entrance interview.

And, God help him, you’re just naturally so damn submissive that he had started imagining you barefoot, pregnant, and panting for him the first time he smiled your way and you averted your eyes like the good, modest girl you are.

So he can’t figure out why you won’t even consider the idea of marriage.

But, no, it won’t be a problem for long, he thinks. He just has to figure out what to do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first attempt at writing Steve (and writing a second person fanfic!), so let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did someone ask for 1,500 words of gentle dark Steve's idea of proper kink negotiation?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter warnings:** poorly negotiated kink, erotic choking, dubious dubcon.

“Steve, please. _Please…”_

Steve grins down at you and snaps his hips forward, seeking out the soft sweet spot inside you that never fails to make you whine. It works again, and his cockhead drags against your walls as you gasp his name. Your legs cling to his hips, tilting your own upward, mindlessly seeking out pleasure.

After long days meeting with conniving politicians or even longer weeks away in the field, these nights with you are a sure thing, a few hours of pure happiness that Steve gets to hoard all for himself. They almost always end up like this: dinner, Netflix, and a desperate fuck on the couch before he moves you to the bed to make slow, gentle love to you. It’s routine, but the routine is comforting. You watch old movies from his list without teasing him, you don’t skip ahead and watch new episodes of _The Good Place_ while he’s on long missions or busy brewing coffee in the kitchen, you humor him and plate up your meals rather than eating out of the cardboard containers they come in.

Then you lay back and let him eat you out ‘til your legs shake, or drop to your knees and do your best to swallow him down, or sink onto his cock while he guides your hips.

And you _never_ have the dark, world-weary look in your eyes that he’s come to expect from his loved ones.

No, you’re just pure fucking love and sweetness and hope.

You’re goddamn perfect, and he loves you so much sometimes that he thinks his heart might burst from it, that the serum will finally fail him and his old ailments will do him in when your smile or your kiss make his heart skip a beat.

Before he can open his mouth to give voice to that thought, you clench around him, searing hot and tighter than a vice.

“Steve, I’m—”

_“Fuck_, sweetheart.” 

Steve dips his head, pressing his nose into the warm, damp hollow of your collar.

And then he stops. He ignores the hot, heady pull on his cock, dragging backwards until only the flared head remains inside, his pelvis tilted away from where it had been working your clit with every thrust.

He’s not going to let you come. Not yet.

He wants to try something.

His hand abandons your waist where it’s keeping you steady enough to take his cock, skimming over your breasts before landing on your neck. The long, smooth column of your throat flexes beneath his palm; your pulse thrums beneath his fingers. 

“Steve?”

You’re watching him with wide, befuddled eyes, still dazed and glassy with lust.

He uses his thumb and index finger on your jaw to keep your head in place—he doesn’t have to, you remain perfectly still—and leans down, licking into your open mouth.

“Good,” he says, his lips on yours.

It’s neither praise nor order, but your walls still clench around him. 

His sweet, submissive girl.

Then he presses into your carotid artery with the tips of his fingers. On you, he applies almost no force at all, but his entire arm burns with the sensation, the knowledge that this is the same grip he’s used on Hydra operatives to render them unconscious before they could bite down on their cyanide capsules.

With you, he’s burning through love rather than hatred, but the thrill he feels when your back arches, your hand rising instinctively to grasp at his wrist, is just the same. 

He can feel his balls drawing up, tight and heavy with cum, and he adjusts his grip on your throat.

Your nails bite into his skin, but you don’t pull. You don’t resist. Your eyes are still big and shocked until he fucks back into you—hard, without warning, thrusting forward until you whimper and squirm against him.

Nothing else matters.

_Nothing._

His world recedes until it’s just you, fucking you, choking you until you cry out, hoarse and wasted on lust.

* * *

You cry out as you come harder than you have in months. 

Steve shifts his hand from your throat and cups your head in his big hand before it can hit the arm of the couch.

Your head is swimming and your ears are ringing too loudly to make any sense of what he’s murmuring into your ear, but you can feel the thick length of him stretching your walls and the heat of his cum seeping out of you in weak, shivery pulses as you come down. Your throat itches in the cool, fresh air, but the rest of your body is covered by Steve’s, his thick arms cocooning you in supersoldier warmth.

He’s so damn big, surrounding you with couch cushions on one side and a wall of nothing but Steve on the other.

Distantly, you’re aware that you’re trembling.

“So good for me… sweet girl…”

For a long time—or, at least, what _feels_ like a long time to you—all you can do is cling to your boyfriend. You keep your hands sandwiched in the warm spot between his biceps and his ribcage, your cold toes between his legs and the couch cushions. 

“That’s right, doll, I’ve got you…”

Steve’s lips, soft and warm, follow a familiar trail from your temple to your jawline. A big hand smooths down the mussed hair you know you must have, and you sigh, pushing your chilly nose into the crook of Steve’s neck and shoulder.

His chest rumbles against you as he chuckles, pulling you in a little closer and holding you to him a little tighter.

“Hey, there. With me now?”

Eventually, you nod, tilting your head back to look up at Steve through your lashes.

“Mhmm.”

He grins at you, the same wide, goofy smile you love so much. “How ya feelin’, babydoll?”

It’s a testament to how relaxed he is that his accent comes through so clearly, and you feel a smile on your lips despite the stubborn shakiness in your limbs. 

You can't really help it; it wasn’t a _bad_ orgasm. Far from it.

Just…

A shocking one.

“Yeah?” Steve asks to confirm your silent response, moving his hand from your hair to your lips, tracing your smile.

He doesn’t stop there, though; just as you start to nod, his fingers go lower, brushing your throat. The skin there is hyper-sensitive under his touch, and you feel your arms and legs break out in goosebumps, your face going red-hot with a blush.

Steve’s smile shifts almost imperceptibly. His eyes go dark and intent, the earnestness fading to something more serious, more… feral.

“You liked that?”

“Steve,” you whisper, nudging at his leg with your foot.

It isn’t easy for you to talk about these things. As much as you like it when Steve whispers dirty things to you at work or in bed, you have a much harder time putting a voice to your desires. He likes it, you’re fairly certain, your shy reluctance to voice the things you’ve been trained for so long to see as taboo. It’s a comfortable, familiar give-and-take: he gets off on the way you cling to your manners, and you get off on all the hot, filthy ideas your sweet, steady man loves to share with you in your intimate moments.

But until today, talking is all that he’s done, and he’s never even mentioned choking you.

In a moment of mental candor, you think, _He’s Captain America, for fuck’s sake._

“What?” Steve must see something in your expression, because he shifts his hand from merely brushing your throat to holding your throat again. “You _are_ my babydoll, huh?”

Your hands twitch with the instinctive response to pull his away from your throat, and your mind goes blank when his cock twitches inside you. God, he’s turned on by this!

Your suspicions are confirmed when he fucks into you, setting the gasoline in your veins on fire.

“Well? Are you?” he asks, his voice having gone low and rough again. Suddenly, his other hand is between your legs—and, _fuck,_ where did it come from? Where did _any_ of this come from?—pinching your clit between his thick index and middle fingers. “Are you my good little doll?”

“Uh huh,” is all you manage to squeak out before he rolls to his feet. 

It’s an honest-to-God testament to his dexterity that he keeps you on his cock all the way to his bedroom, where he pulls you off of himself—and you whimper at the sudden loss—to toss you onto his downy comforter.

Something in the way he looks at you... He doesn't look like Steve Rogers anymore. He doesn't look like the apple-pie man in the recruitment posters or the comic books. He looks hungry, predatory, and your breath catches in your throat to see such a thing so plain on his face.

He watches you crawl backwards on his bed with a glint in his eye, and you laugh nervously, clenching your legs together when he groans low in his throat with anticipation.

Before you can blink, he’s on top of you, prying your legs apart and licking a stripe up your pussy, your belly, your breasts. It’s unlike him to go for round two so vigorously, just like the entire evening has been unlike the Steve you thought you knew, but your pulse is vibrating beneath your skin, your clit aching with need.

“You belong right here with me.” Steve lines himself up, watching himself gather your mixed juices on the head of his cock before he presses forward, sliding into you with a low hiss. “Right fucking here, babydoll.”

And when he grasps your wrists in one hand and your throat in his other, you forget _everything_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this update took so long. My first laptop died and took my notes with it, and then I was moving house and applying to jobs... One of which I got! So then I was busy going to training sessions and getting settled in a new place and a new field of work, etc, etc, etc.
> 
> I'm definitely not going to take nearly so long in the future, but just to make up for it, have this extra-long chapter of Stevie goodness.

You’re sore when you wake up, but that’s nothing new. You’ve been waking up sore since the first night you pretended not to notice Steve inching his hand up under your skirt. He’s big—that much is obvious to anyone with eyes—but almost more than that, he’s _ athletic_.

As much as he tries to carry your weight and ease your movements when you’re making love, he never quite manages entirely. Your thighs ache from being locked around his hips, your shoulders and back twinge from being arched and tensed so often as he wrung out orgasm after orgasm from you, and your lower abdomen… 

Well. That part is self-explanatory.

But with the hot length of Steve’s body along your back and one of your cheeks cushioned on a thick arm, the mere thought of your heating pad makes your skin itch with sweat. You wriggle in his unconscious grip, cursing Abraham Erskine and the serum that turned your boyfriend into a super-strong human furnace, and struggle against the steel bands of Steve’s arms to get to the ibuprofen you keep well stocked in the bedside tables in your apartment and Steve’s brownstone.

“Mmph.”

You freeze as Steve grumbles and presses his nose into your hair, snuffling. 

“Steve?” you whisper, poking at the arm beneath your head.

“Mmph.”

A quiet laugh loosens your chest; if you know your boyfriend, then you know he’s fully conscious. Hell, he probably woke up the second your breathing began to indicate your shift out of deep sleep, but you appreciate the intentional, adorable moments of vulnerability he likes to steal while he’s cuddling you like a teddy bear.

_ “Steve.” _

_ “Baby.” _

His voice is thick and hoarse with sleep, and for a second, you forget the ache between your thighs. But when Steve reaches around you, pressing his free hand to your stomach and pulling you even closer, you wince with renewed pain.

Turning your head, you press a kiss to his tricep. “‘M sore, honey.”

“Mmhmm.”

You hear Steve press a kiss into your hair, and then the arm around your waist releases you. When you start to wriggle away, he pats you—a silent order to _ stay there_—so you go boneless and turn your head to watch as he reaches back behind himself, producing a little round tin of mints and an aluminum water bottle from his own nightstand.

“Mints?” you ask, taking the tin and the water.

“Open it,” he murmurs, gently readjusting you so you’re on your opposite side, your breasts pressed against his chest.

With a little kiss to the skin over his heart—and his chest rumbles happily beneath your lips at that—you twist open the tin.

“Oh,” you breathe, touched by the sight of the three orange pills in the tin. 

You forget, sometimes, when Steve grew up and how often he has a habit of hanging onto little things like this. Mint tins, jam jars, plastic takeout containers, and grocery bags take up an entire cabinet in his kitchen, waiting for the day he finds a new use for them. 

Maybe it’s strange to think your boyfriend is sweet for thinking of providing you painkillers to soothe the ache of a thorough fuck, but you think it is.

“Bottoms up.”

Steve flicks the bottom of the tin and then grabs a handful of _ your _bottom, and you yelp, trying to keep from losing the painkillers among the tangle of sheets beneath you. 

You resist the urge to stick out your tongue by tilting the tin into your mouth and twisting open the water bottle. You take a sip… and sigh happily. It’s one of the expensive ones that keeps water cool for hours at a time, and you can tell Steve bought it just for you, if the floral print on the outside is any clue.

“Easy, easy,” Steve warns, slipping his hand from your ass to your thigh.

You huff as he lifts your leg, the stretch uncomfortable, but he massages your thigh as he goes. You take another sip of water and nearly choke when he slots his cock between your thighs, settling it thick and hard and hot against the length of your pussy. He sets your leg back down and doesn’t move—doesn’t thrust, doesn’t rut, doesn’t even twitch—except to pull you close enough that your abdomen is pressed against his own.

“Done?” he asks, pressing the top back onto the mint tin and holding out a hand. You blush—_how can he be so casual with his cock nestled between your legs when you’re already wet and growing wetter? _—and sip once more before nodding, handing him the bottle. He slips them both between your pillow and the headboard, within easy reach of you both, and then wraps his arm around you once more, rolling over until he’s on his back and you’re pancaked on top of him.

When he closes his eyes and doesn’t move, you flex your thighs somewhat self-consciously. God, you can feel his pulse against your clit, and he’s just… ignoring it?

“Sleep, doll,” Steve tells you, his voice gruff again. You can feel the tension in his stomach, and even the arm around your waist tightens until you have no choice but to lay your head down on his chest.

“Steve?”

“‘S still early,” he tells you in a low grumble, pressing his nose into your hair again. “Sleep ‘n feel better.”

“Oh… okay?” 

You force yourself to relax against him, focusing on each of your limbs until you truly do go boneless and limp against Steve’s broad chest. The fingertips of the hand that isn’t pressed against the small of your back trace circles across your skin, dancing in soothing, hypnotizing loops until your eyes begin to droop and you really do start to drift off again.

It only occurs to you on the very precipice of sleep that Steve has made himself, in his own odd way, into a heat pad for you, his warmth pressed firmly into all of the places you need it most.

* * *

You wake up cool and comfortable, loathe to open your eyes and put an end to the quiet, peaceful moment. It takes you a moment to orient yourself—without Steve holding onto you, only his scent on your pillow and the firm, luxurious mattress beneath you clue you into your surroundings.

You can’t hear Steve anywhere in the room, so you took a moment, peeking one eye open just to make sure he’s truly gone before pulling the duvet over his face and curling up in embarrassment. He was just being thoughtful this morning, but the mere fact that you used his— _ Well_. 

_ “Ugh.” _

It’s mortifying.

Almost unbearably sweet, but mortifying, nonetheless.

You take one deep breath, then another, and try to cool your overheated cheeks by fanning them with the covers before finally opening your eyes.

There’s nothing for it. You’ll have to face him at some point, and you have to get to work by nine. Judging from the sun pouring into the room from the window, it’s already well past six, and you don’t have time to lounge if you’re going to get home, get dressed, and get to work on time.

And that’s when you hear it.

Him.

_ Bucky._

“Fuck!”

You throw yourself out of bed and into the en suite, your hopes for a quick breakfast and a shower in your own apartment dashed by a glance in the mirror. You look thoroughly, horribly fucked, with wild bedhead and a trail of lovebites across your bare shoulder.

It’s not that Bucky’s _ un_welcome, per se…

It’s just that the last time you saw your clothes, they were scattered across the rug in the living room downstairs.

“No, no, no,” you mutter under your breath. A quick rinse in the shower, a minute with Steve’s extra toothbrush, and a quick comb through your hair clear away the most of your just-fucked look, and you pick through Steve’s dresser for a pair of clean panties—stashed not-so-slyly under Steve’s dressier, nicely-folded-but-rarely-worn shirts—and one of his T-shirts.

It isn’t a full outfit—and right now you would _ pay _to be able to fit into a pair of Steve’s sweatpants without tripping down the stairs on their miles-long hems—but it will have to do until you can find your own clothes.

And hopefully you can sneak out the back door before Bucky spots you in the clothes you wore to work yesterday.

Once you creep down the stairs, desperate to avoid detection from the two people in the world who can probably hear a spider climbing the walls from a hundred feet, you do your best not to shrivel up and die inside when you can’t find any of your clothes in the living room, not even your bra. 

You’re cursing Steve—_damn him and his meticulous military-neatness! _—when the flannel blanket from the back of the couch drops over your shoulders and you nearly jump out of your skin.

_ “God!” _

“Morning, babydoll.”

You have to take a minute to recover from your boyfriend’s second early morning attempt to give you a heart attack, thumping him on the chest when he grins down at you and swoops down to press a gentle kiss to your lips.

“I’ve got breakfast on the stove if you want to join us,” he says. “Bucky and me.”

_ “Steve.” _ You keep your voice to a futile whisper and shoot a pointed glance at the empty floor beside the couch and burrow further into the blanket.

Your boyfriend grimaces. “It’s all in the dryer. I, uh, I didn’t think Bucky would be joining me on my run this morning.”

“How much longer?” you ask, letting your head fall onto his chest. 

“Ten, fifteen minutes?”

“Steve!”

“Baby, I know, I _ know… _but it’s just Bucky.” His hands rub a soothing pattern across your shoulders. “You think he’ll mind my steady girl spending the night? Do you know how many nights I had to sleep on our couch because he had a girl he barely even knew in our room?”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” you mumble into his shirt. “I don’t even have any pants.”

Steve’s hands pause, tightening around your arms. “You wanna go upstairs and wait ‘til your clothes are done?”

You sigh and think about the time crunch you’re in. 

_ It’s just Bucky._

“Have you made coffee yet?”

“It’s brewing now. Want a cup?”

“Yeah.” Lifting your head, you angle for a kiss, humming happily when Steve obliges. “You owe me, though.”

“Whatever you want.” 

Scrunching your nose at him, you wiggle out of his arms and follow him down the skinny hallway to the eat-in kitchen.

You don’t even get past the doorway before an arm reaches out from the table, grasping you around the waist and pulling you into Bucky’s side.

“Morning, babydoll.”

You fight the urge to drop your head into your hands and hide from the world; Bucky must have heard every word you and Steve said in the living room.

“Let her go, Buck.”

“Good morning, Bucky.” 

You try to pin him with a glance, but he grins at you. It’s a look you’ve gotten used to in the past few months as he’s worked his way out of his shell around you, his _ watch this _look.

“When are you gonna leave this skinny punk for me, huh?”

You can tell, just from the millisecond where Steve glances up from the stove, his face completely still, that anyone else asking that question would be in serious danger of getting dragged out back and punched.

_ But it’s just Bucky, _ you think as Steve simply rolls his eyes, groaning. 

“Aw, Buck, c’mon.”

“What? Your girl deserves the real _ Brooklyn _experience, don’tchu think?” Bucky drawls out the suggestion, low and slow. He jiggles arm that has you trapped against his side, waggling his eyebrows. “You sure you’re rationed, sugar?”

You school your features into your best pout and nod, shrugging your shoulders as if to say_ you simply can’t help it, dating Steve. _

“Sorry, Sarge.”

Bucky hangs his head like a dog denied a treat, looking cartoonishly defeated. Spotting his grin beneath his curtain of hair, you can’t help but giggle, embarrassed and delighted.

“You done trying to steal my girl?”

Steve sets a mug of coffee beside you and slides a plate piled high with eggs, bacon, and toast in front of Bucky. He’s standing taller than usual, looking bigger and broader than he ever does when he’s hunching his shoulders and leaning down towards you—a sweet little gesture you only ever seem to notice when it’s gone. Usually, it disappears when _ he’s _the one playing with you, pulling the Captain America card when you try to tempt him to take a longer lunch break or trying to overwhelm you so he can steal a kiss at your desk.

He’s got a wry smile on his lips, but Bucky doesn’t react to it like you do by leaning closer to him.

Instead, his grip on your waist shifts to an open-palmed, platonic hand between your shoulder blades, and his jovial grin tilts into a smirk.

“Steve, sweetheart—”

“C’mon, Stevie.” Bucky cuts you off, giving you one more little shake. “How many dates did I set you up on back in the day? You can’t share a little?”

“Too many and no.”

You glance back at Bucky and raise your brows at Steve. 

“You always said you didn’t date much before the war.”

If Bucky’s girls were the type to fall into bed so easily, then what kind of girls did he used to set Steve up with? Your amusement flickers back to life as Steve flushes, his blue eyes going dark under his furrowed brow.

“He dated,” Bucky tells you conspiratorially. “He was just picky. Those girls never made it past the first date.” 

“Right, Buck.” Steve shakes his head and turns back toward the stove. His tightly pursed lips don’t escape your notice._ “I _ was the picky one.”

You glance back at Bucky, lost. His lips are pursed, too—not with annoyance, but with some kind of guilty, concerned familiarity.

“But you were so cute,” you try.

Bucky’s hand goes stiff on your back.

“Cute.” Steve snorts, dropping another massive serving of eggs onto a plate. “Yeah, a skinny little punk with fu- _ lousy _lungs who was in the habit of getting roughed up in back alley brawls. No girl wants that.”

Steve turns around and his eyes skip right over Bucky. You can understand his chagrin; this is as close as you two have ever gotten to a real fight, and now you’re doing it in front of his best friend.

“Well, I do,” you say, thinking of the mint tin and breaking the incendiary eye contact before it can ignite. Pulling out of Bucky’s grasp, you drop yourself into the seat beside him. “You were and are cute, so good riddance to them. I’ll keep you all to myself.”

You put as much finality as you can into your tone, stirring some sugar from the little canister in front of you into your coffee and casting a warning glance at both men that hopefully says you won’t entertain any more arguments on the subject. Bucky stays frozen, sniper-still, until Steve moves.

A kiss falls into your hair, a plate sliding onto the table in the spot beside you, and Steve finally sits. It isn’t until his arm is wrapped around your shoulders that Bucky’s breathing becomes audible again, and you glance up to find Steve smiling at you both.

Bucky grins back and lifts his glass, toasting you with it. “Good riddance.”

Steve huffs out a laugh and spears a forkful of egg. 

You wink at Bucky and sip your coffee in agreement. No, you aren’t going to waste a single second feeling bad that most of the women you’re insulting are either dead or near to it when they evidently made a man like Steve feel so bad about himself.

Except…

“Steve, honey, did you pick up a new kind of coffee? This is bitterer than usual."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this counts as an easy morning when you're dating an Avenger who stays on call to save the world 24/7.
> 
> Next up: Steve, his girl, and the wider world!


	4. Chapter 4

“I’m sorry.”

Steve presses a few buttons to switch the cameras on the security feed by his front door. It wouldn’t do for an errant paparazzi brave enough to risk incurring Pepper Potts’ wrath to catch a shot of the Avengers’ assistant leaving his house—not when you stand beside him, wringing your hands and peering anxiously at the display.

Both of you decided to keep your relationship quiet early on. You didn’t want to be called a power-hungry, ladder-climbing whore when the parasites on the Internet found out where you worked, and Steve didn’t relish the thought of the amount of paperwork he would have to fill out when he embedded the blunt edge of his shield into the throat of the first Hydra goon who so much as glanced in your direction.

And Steve can't complain. Having you all to himself, building your own quiet, little world in his home away from the writhing, bloodthirsty press, feels nice. Cozy. You get enough media attention as it is as their secretary, simply because the public can't get enough of the Avengers or their coffee orders from the Starbucks on the ground floor of the Tower. Sometimes, he's thankful you aren't a Jane Foster or Pepper Potts type; he doesn't think he could handle watching you flit around the world, your name and location in the papers, while he waits for the next attempt on your life.

“Steve?” 

Your voice is sweet, curious and uncertain, and Steve lets it wash over him. The muscles along his spine relax, the breath he’s holding rushes out of him, and he reaches out, curling an arm around you.

“I snapped this morning. It was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

“Is that what this is about?” You smile up at him, sweet and forgiving, and Steve feels the last of the morning’s tension slip away. “It’s a well documented fact that you have a temper, sweetheart. I’m pretty sure my dad owns a book about it.” 

“Doesn’t make it okay.”

Steve drops his head, breathing in the scent of his shampoo in your hair. Your hands rest at his waist, and he sighs. You’re too good. Too sweet.

He really wouldn’t have stood a chance with you 10 years ago, when he was still an angry, skinny punk in Bucky’s poorly tailored hand-me-downs.

But still, you tilt your head up and press a kiss to his jaw.

“Lesser men than you have done worse at being called cute.”

He closes his eyes, leaning back against the wall and pulling you with him. You oblige, leaning into him, and he holds you for a long moment, saying nothing.

“I’ve got to get to work,” you murmur into his shirt, the damp heat of your breath catching on the cotton above his heart. “Come on, sunshine, it looks like the coast is clear.”

“‘Kay… ‘kay.” 

Steve watches you shoulder your bag, glancing again at the monitor before he opens the door for you. You smile at that, and it makes the small gesture more than worth it.

“I’ll see you there, yeah?”

“Yeah, honey, I’ll see you there.”

* * *

Steve can’t be certain, but he thinks you’ve done more for his heart’s health than the serum ever did. It’s singing in his chest, strumming along to a steady, easy beat, throughout the rest of the morning. He washes the dishes, and his heart beats on. He brushes his teeth and gets dressed, grinning at the slip of lace he spots beneath his dress shirts, and his heart keeps steady..

Not a beat out of place until he slides into the car beside Bucky and his best friend opens his mouth.

“What are you doing to that girl, Steve?”

And his heart stutters and thuds like he's a sickly sixteen year old kid again.

“What?” He swallows; he can’t act for shit, not in front of Bucky. “I’m dating her, Buck.”

“I can see that.” Bucky cuts a look at him, and it’s sharp enough to slice Steve to the core. “But that’s not what I asked. I want to know what you are doing to her.”

“I don’t know—”

“Cut the crap.”

Steve swallows again. He cranks the engine and pulls out of the tight parking space on the street in front of his narrow brownstone, stalling for time as Bucky stares stonily ahead. It’s unlike him. Usually, he likes to look around when Steve drives and point out all the stupid changes people have made to their beloved borough since they left it in 1943.

Just before they cross the bridge into Manhattan, Bucky’s breathing finally turns from his trained, concentrated 7-4-7 rhythm and into a series of angry huffs, and Steve caves.

“Buck.”

“Steve.”

Steve winces. That same tone always got him, ever since he was a kid trying to play off an alley brawl as an unfortunate stumble down some stairs, and it’s no different this time. The pressure in the car feels tangible, like an anvil on his sternum, or the asthma attack he had after he threw a rock at Mickey Culkenny to get him to stop picking on a cat and got chased four blocks in the snow.

“I’m not—”

“Bullshit. What did you put in her coffee?”

Steve breathes out through his nose. Patience._ “Nothing.” _

“Bull. Shit.”

“No, seriously, Buck.” Steve pauses a beat longer than he should at a stop sign, twisting to look Bucky in the eye. Bucky doesn’t look back. “Nothing.”

“Are you really going to keep lying to me, Steve? Really?”

Bucky’s voice is wound tight, and he bites out every syllable from a clenched jaw. 

“I swear, Bucky. I put nothing in her coffee. We can go back and get the mug and—”

“Then what the hell _ did _you do, Steve? What the fuck are you doing?” Bucky slices his flesh hand through the air, punctuating himself with wild gesticulation, and a glance tells Steve that his metal fist is curled against his thigh. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Why do you care?”

“Why do I— Jesus _ Christ, _ Steve. Why _ do _ I care about a little nobody of a girl playing with gods and monsters and men who can crush her like a bug? Couldn’t possibly be because I’m, I dunno, her _ friend, _ could it?” Bucky glares over the console. “You’ve been cagey all goddamn morning, so I will ask you one more time, Steven: what the fuck did you do?”

“I only brewed her coffee stronger than usual.”

Bucky snorts.

“I thought she could use it,” Steve says. The words taste like ash in his mouth; he’s always hated lying to Bucky, and he likes it even less after prying his best friend out from the grasp of Hydra’s cold, slippery, manipulative tentacles.

Bucky says, “So you brewed her coffee stronger than usual,” and Steve can tell that he knows it’s a half-truth.

“Yes.”

“Because she was tired.”

“Tony overworks her.”

Bucky nods with one sharp, angry jerk of his chin, and resumes his sightless stare out the window.

Steve chews on his lip.

They’re almost at the Tower when Bucky cracks the hard, brittle shell of silence surrounding them.

“You’re going to tell me one more thing.”

Steve takes a deep breath. He can do that. One more thing.

One little, inconsequential detail.

“Okay.”

“No... no alien shit? No...” Bucky’s mouth snaps shut, and he waves a hand around at his temple. “No mind-altering.”

“Bucky.” The apprehension in his old friend’s eyes cuts into Steve, right through his core, like a blow from his own shield to the ribcage. It tightens his throat again. “I would never.”

“She’s dating you because she wants to date you.”

“Yes.”

“And if she didn’t want to date you…”

“I’d let her go.”

_ Like hell _. He wouldn’t let you go without a long, hard, brutal fight, and in the end, if you still wanted to leave, it would be less a matter of letting you go and more a matter of getting Pepper or Sam to seek you out in whatever deep, dark trench you managed to weather Steve’s desperate assault in while Bucky held him back.

“And you’re not going to lay a goddamn finger on her?”

“Bucky,” Steve sighs. It’s just as well that they’re rolling up to a red light, because he slumps back against his seat and lolls his head toward his best—his oldest, truest—friend, defeated. “Who do you think I am?”

Bucky glances out the window and sighs. 

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah, pal. Alright.”

A car honks its horn and Steve jumps. The light is green again and the lane in front of him is empty; clearly, it’s been green for some time. He huffs and presses the accelerator, rolling through the intersection with just enough time to watch the light flicker yellow again before they pass it completely.

After another couple of blocks pass in silence, he can’t take it anymore, even though it’s a far less hostile standoff.

“Just like that?”

“I dunno what to tell you.”

“You said it. I know who you are.” A rustle of fabric and a glint of sunlight against metal tells Steve that Bucky is shrugging. “And you know we’re ‘til the end of the line, pal.”

Relief. Pure, cool, soothing relief, like a drink of fresh water after a hard-fought battle washes from the back of Steve’s neck and down his spine. He hadn’t realized he was getting heated, riled up by Bucky’s line of questioning, until it’s over.

“Thank you.”

“And if she’s it for you, then...” Bucky clears his throat and cracks the knuckles of his right hand, pulling each finger tight to his palm with his thumb one by one. They’re old nervous habits he picked up from George Barnes that made a slow but steady return to Bucky’s repertoire of mannerisms. 

Steve recognizes them, and he has to suppress a throatful of half-crazed laughter when he finally realizes what’s happening. 

He flips on the turn signal when they reach the parking garage access for the Tower before turning to look at Bucky, trying not to smile too much, but a twitch of Bucky’s lips tell him that he doesn’t succeed. “Then what, Buck?”

“Just… let me know if you need help, Stevie,” Bucky finally says, a note of confidence in his tone. “You deserve something good.”

“Thanks, Buck.”

Steve flashes his SHIELD badge at one of Friday’s cameras through the window.

“She’s a good girl.”

“Yeah, Buck. She is.” They descend several floors, driving in tight loops, before Steve can't help himself any longer. “And, you know, maybe she has a friend…”

“Oh, _ fuck _you.” Bucky barks out a single, harsh laugh, and a hard metal fist connects with Steve’s shoulder. 

“Nah, pal, I’m getting laid. You might want to think about yourself.”

Bucky opens the door before Steve can even pull into a spot, tossing his seatbelt over his shoulder and waving him off. “It's a goddamn ass-backwards world I'm living in where you get the dames.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I'm so sorry this took so long. It took a while to recover my inspiration after a bit of a plagiarism scandal. (Please, please, please do not copy and paste other author's work into a doc and use it as "inspiration" for a new fic just by changing a few words and combining it with other excerpts from other stolen works. That _is_ plagiarism.) I deleted my blog, as well, but someday soon I will recreate that too and really get back into this community.
> 
> Thank you for reading! We're heading into some real Avengers action soon!


End file.
